Bangalore airport achieves financial closure

Bangalore airport work to start July 2, airport to be ready by April 2008

BY OUR BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT

June 28, 2005: The Devanahalli International airport has achieved financial closure, with the ICICI Bank agreeing to fund 52.1 per cent of it as loan. The work would commence on July 2. The airport is expected to be ready for use in April 2008.

The Bangalore International Airport Limited (BAIL) would be a joint venture between Siemens project ventures (40%), Larsen and Toubro (17%), Zurich airport (17%), Karnataka Government (13%) and Central Government (13%).

The first phase of the airport would consist of a 4000-metre-long runway, taxiways and an apron area with aircraft stands and a terminal building. The land area for the Devanahalli airport was 3,800 acres, keeping in mind the future expansion to meet probable demand in the civil aviation sector. The Seimenís led consortium was selected on October 2001 after the bidders submitted detailed project reports in November, 2000. The airport would be able to handle up to 5 million passengers a year and would be capable of being further developed to handle 40 million passengers in future.

BIAL will run the airport for 30 years, with a provision to extend the term for another 30 years, under a build , operate and transfer
(BOT) scheme.

Bangalore had been the hub of Indiaís software industry and air passengers to and from Bangalore had risen significantly. Bangalore accounts for one third of Indiaís software exports, totaling $17.2 billion.

The project cost has been put at 14.11 billion rupees. Aviation demand in India has been registering a steep 25 % increase every year. Nearly 65% of Bangalore's population consists of people from other parts of India as well as foreign nationals. The state government is considering setting up an information technology corridor linking Electronics City and Whitefield, two IT hotspots where many software giants have set up shop. Bangalore also is a bio-technology hotspot with more than 240 biotech firms having base. Karnataka attracted the maximum venture capital funding for biotechnology in India in the year 2003-04, netting in $8 million.
Biocon, headquartered in Bangalore, is the nation's leading biotechnology firm and ranks 16th in the world in revenues.

Airshows showcasing inventories from Hindutsan Aeroanuics Limited and international corporations such as
Sukhoi, Lockheed Martin, Mirage and BAE Systems are held at the Yelahanka Airforce base near Bangalore once in two years.

HAL as well as National Aerospace Laboratories and the Indian Space Research Organisation are headquartered in
Bangalore. Bangalore, the capital city of the southern state of
Kartnataka, has a population of 5 million. The state government is run by a coalition of the Congress and the Janata Dal (S) with Dharam Singh as chief minister.